What Nobody in Williamsburg Knew
A few days ago a reader on the interactive fiction forum asked a polite question about one sentence. I had described Historical Williamsburg Living Narrative as a game in which you arrive in Williamsburg on the evening of April 19, 1775, “just as word of the battles at Lexington and Concord begins reaching the colonial capital.” He happened to be reading a book about Lexington and Concord. Was the news really in Virginia that same evening?
It was not, and he had the reference to prove it. The fighting began that morning in Massachusetts and went on through the afternoon. The news traveled south by express rider, town to town, and it reached Williamsburg late on April 28 or early on the 29th. On the evening my game opens, nobody in the city could have known.
He apologized for being pedantic. He was not being pedantic. He was doing exactly what I hope players of a history game will do.
Why the Right Answer Is the Better Story
Once I looked at it squarely, the correction improved the game. You, the player, know what happened in Massachusetts that morning. No one you meet does. The tavern keeper does not know. The printer’s apprentice does not know. The Governor does not know either, and that matters, because on the night of April 20 Lord Dunmore sends Royal Marines to carry off the colony’s gunpowder with no idea that the war has already started hundreds of miles to the north. The two pieces of news do not collide until a week later.
So version 1.71 fixes the one character who spoke as if the news had arrived. Richard Charlton, who keeps the coffeehouse and prides himself on being the best informed man in town, now tells you there is nothing fresh from Massachusetts and that everyone is waiting on it. I am correcting my descriptions of the game as well.
Patrick Henry Comes to Town
The same care went into the largest addition in this update. Patrick Henry is now in Williamsburg for one night. You can find him at the Raleigh Tavern on the opening evening and again at breakfast the next morning, before he rides home to Hanover.
The record says Henry was at home in Hanover when he learned the powder had been taken, and that he marched toward Williamsburg with the county militia at the start of May. Nothing I have found places him in the city on April 19, and nothing rules it out. So the game takes one small liberty and is honest about it: he visits, he speaks his mind about a Governor he does not trust, and he is gone a full day before the trouble starts. His friends have warned him that his name is being spoken at the Palace more than is healthy, which is why he keeps out of the public room after dark and leaves by daylight.
If you are at the Raleigh at the right moment that evening, the room will call for the Richmond speech and he will give them the close of it. One caution for the historically minded: nobody wrote that speech down when it was delivered. The words we all know come from William Wirt’s biography of 1817, pieced together from the memories of men who were there. That is the text the game uses.
A Fuller Town
Seven more people now live in the taverns and the coffeehouse: Patience Anderson, Samuel Briggs, Dr. Ephraim Coles, Richard Charlton, Josiah Holt, Mrs. Vobe, and Ned Pulliam. They were written long ago and, through an oversight of mine, never actually appeared. The cast now stands at 22.
Late on the night of April 20, a file of Marines now moves through town toward the waterfront, a few hours before the powder is taken. That event was never occurring, which meant part of the score could not be earned. And you can now get a proper night’s sleep on every night of your visit, which was harder than it should have been.
Corrections Welcome
This project grew out of research on interactive fiction as a way to teach, and a correction from a careful reader is that idea working as intended. If something in the timeline looks wrong to you, I would much rather hear about it than not.
One practical note: saved games from versions before 1.70 will not load in the new version.
Historical Williamsburg Living Narrative is available for Windows on itch.io for $4.99, with a free demo: interactivefact.itch.io/hwln
